JADE Handover Ceremony at the European Parliement

The Handover from the 2017 Team to the 2018 Team took place on the 11.07.2017

As every year in July, JADEs Executive Board is changing terms. This is traditionally celebrated with an official handover ceremony where the outgoing Team is presenting the results achieved during the year, the incoming Team gives an outlook to the strategic direction for the upcoming year and presents foundations for the long term. Thanks to the invitation of MEP Fernandes, we were able to hold our ceremony again at the European Parliament, where we introduced the new team to all of JADE’s stakeholders.

The opening was marked by an encouraging speech of member of the advisory board, Daniel Schaubacher of the EBBF (ethical business building the future), who is accompanying JADE already since over 15 years. Subsequently, current president Yann Camus gave an overview of the past year on the background of the 25th anniversary of the organization. The entire 2017 team, Yann Camus, Gaia Cravesana, Mona Herter and Krisztián Ivan presented the achievements of an exciting year for JADE and the new team Diogo Parreira, Alfonso Catone, Adrien Lepic and Giorgio Sleiter introduced themselves to their stakeholders.

Elected president for the 2017-2018 term Diogo Parreira held an inspirational speech about the past and the future of the Junior Enterprise movement. “The Junior Enterprise movement is all about developing university students, giving them a true possibility of having a word to say; one opportunity more to learn; one additional challenge to overtake; an inspiration to do more; to ensure students find their right place, their own purpose and a relevant impact.

Today is the beginning of a new chapter. And it is, indeed. We are here to mark the transition of different chapters of the same book. The book that defines our common history as the European Confederation of Junior Enterprises. This is a special book, started to be written 50 years ago, when someone realised that it was the time to fill the gap between the academia and the business world, connecting them through a practical approach, much more than the theoretical guidelines we use to learn in classes. From the past to the present, this is the time to put our eyes looking to the future.”

The motto of his speech was “Our movement is ready”.

It is ready to maximize its impact, shaping a generation of university students through an entrepreneurial vision of the business world, applying their knowledge in real business cases and filling the gap between the competencies they have and the competencies the labour mark requests.

It is ready to increase its impact in the business world – not only delivering high-quality projects and high-quality talent to companies but, more than these, being aware that we are the next generation that will shape the way business is done. Junior Entrepreneurs are the leaders of tomorrow that will manage companies towards sustainable strategies, create new paradigms on stakeholders’ engagement and on social responsibility. The ones developing the best practices we will be using 10 years from now. They will be the ones leading organizations through even more complex challenges, more competitive markets and more demanding customers. And their preparation to face those challenges starts as a Junior Entrepreneur.

It is ready to have a conspicuous impact on our society – encouraging a more active position towards the common problems we have, and bringing new solutions to the table. Junior Enterprises are empowering new citizens with a critical approach and always a recommendation to suggest. The impact they have is a matter of commitment and purpose.

25 years after the first Junior Enterprise, we learned that we can go far only if we stay together – unified as a movement. A connected network was created, represented by JADE, to promote the unity of a single purpose and to extend it to more students beyond national boundaries. We have the duty to let every single student embrace the concept of Junior Enterprise – to introduce them to the concept, to create the conditions to their participation and the best environment to their development. As a matter of fact, JADE was born to strengthen cooperation and to boost growth. Now, as non-conformist people, we have asked ourselves the questions: what comes next?

The organization is looking forward to a prosperous year with a very talented and dedicated new team which will create the foundations for the next 25 years of JADE history. Outgoing JADE Vice President Gaia Cravesana commented the traditional key ceremony with “It is with great pleasure, confidence and endless trust that we are handing over the keys of the organization to the new team”.

The former team was glad to use this beautiful occasion to thank all partners of the organization, corporate as well as institutional, and collaborators without who’s help it would not have been possible to achieve all these great results. The best of luck, perseverance and success to the new team!

About JADE

JADE is an umbrella organisation of more than 300 student-run businesses across 200 universities in 14 European countries. Following the motto “learning-by-doing”, our students bridge the gap between academia and real business world. By running non-profit SMEs and being social entrepreneurs, the students turn over 16 million euro per year and involve more than 22,000 peers, thus leaving a significant impact on the local and national business world.

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